A strong presumption that the public should see what you see

Why there is such a low reporting rate for rape and other sexual abuse, reason #947,859.

Media outlets do not have the right to publish the bikini-clad photo of one of the complainants in Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial, even with the woman’s face blurred, the judge in the case has ruled.

A lawyer representing seven major news organizations — including the CBC — sought access to a photo that the woman sent to Ghomeshi more than a year after he allegedly assaulted her.

The photo was presented as evidence, but was not shown to spectators in the courtroom. It was described as a shot of the woman in a red bikini on a beach.

Well we want to loooooooooook at it. Let us seeeeeeeeeee it. How can we have our half-assed opinion about the slutty slut in the bikini if we don’t get to see her slutting in it?

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified under cross-examination that she sent the photo as “bait” to get Ghomeshi to contact her so she could ask him to explain why he had been violent with her.

Representing the media organizations, lawyer Iris Fischer argued the photo should be released, but with the woman’s face and any identifying marks blurred to keep her identity secret.

“There is a strong presumption that the public should see what you see,” Fischer told the judge. “It relates to the witness’s credibility.”

There is? Why? The public isn’t on the jury. How would the public’s leering at the photo of her in a bikini do anything to her credibility in court?

She said it would help the public assess the complainant’s testimony that she was trying to bait Ghomeshi.

But the public doesn’t need to do that. The jury does. The public doesn’t.

Crown attorney Michael Callaghan argued the damaging effect of releasing the photo would vastly outweigh the public benefit.

Knowing that a photo like this could be published during a trial would have a “chilling effect” on sexual assault victims, said Callaghan. “In fact, I’d suggest it would be a deep freeze” on the likelihood of complainants in other cases going to the police.

What is most disgusting in all of this is the fact Ghomeshi’s employer appears to have known about it, but refrained from going public. Ghomeshi’s credentials as Muslim, Iranian and immigrant ticked so many, many cherished boxes that management refused to even consider the mounting allegations.

Ghomeshi and Cosby could carry on for years. Because their behavior was only slightly beyond what’s accepted as ‘normal’ dating.

Coercion, the distribution of favors, the imposition of sexual demand in relationships with grossly unequal power. Women in MANY professional circumstances are simple expected to tap-dance around the edge of abuse like this. And it does seem that many women don’t register the outrage one would expect, until the monsters have shown their whole faces.

Is there evidence that Ghomeshi’s ethnicity and Muslim background were relevant in his employers covering up his abuses? I thought it was more that he was a very popular broadcaster hosting one of the network’s highest rated shows.

Wanting to “show the public” is entirely consistent with the defense’s strategy to undermine the testimony of the complainants by portraying them as worldly women who knew what they were getting into.

And in response to this strategy, Gillian Hnatiw, lawyer for complainant Lucy DeCoutere (who chose to make her name public), recently read a statement, which says in part:

Violence against women is not about the behaviour of the women. It is not about how they cope with an assault or the details they commit to memory in the aftermath. This is, and remains, a trial about Mr. Ghomeshi’s conduct. What Lucy did and how she felt in the aftermath of the assault does not change that essential fact.

I don’t think his ethnicity played any great role in the CBC’s slow response, rather that he had prominent fans, many of them women and he was involved in some “feminist” causes. My only encounter with him was too brief to form any strong impression and as other threads here have already noted, there is often little connection between professional accomplishment and personal behaviour.

Ghomeshi’s ethno/religious identity may have helped insulate him from the charges for a while. There had been rumours about his private life for some time before the scandal broke, but Ghomeshi’s background intimidated those who may have wanted to investigate at an earlier date. After all, these assaults go back nearly 15 years and the foot dragging is similar to that surrounding Bill Cosby’s charges